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Anatole had lately moved to Dolokhov's. The plan for Natalie
Rostova's abduction had been arranged and the preparations made
by Dolokhov a few days before, and on the day that Sonya, after
listening at Natasha's door, resolved to safeguard her, it was
to have been put into execution. Natasha had promised to come
out to Kuragin at the back porch at ten that evening. Kuragin
was to put her into a troyka he would have ready and to drive
her forty miles to the village of Kamenka, where an unfrocked
priest was in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony over them.
At Kamenka a relay of horses was to wait which would take them
to the Warsaw highroad, and from there they would hasten abroad
with post horses.
Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand
rubles he had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed
with Dolokhov's help.
Two witnesses for the mock marriage- Khvostikov, a retired
petty official whom Dolokhov made use of in his gambling transactions,
and Makarin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an
unbounded affection for Kuragin- were sitting at tea in Dolokhov's
front room.
In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling
with Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dolokhov in a traveling
cloak and high boots, at an open desk on which lay abacus and
some bundles of paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned,
walked to and fro from the room where the witnesses were sitting,
through the study to the room behind, where his French valet and
others were packing the last of his things. Dolokhov was counting
the money and noting something down.
"Well," he said, "Khvostikov must have two
thousand."
"Give it to him, then," said Anatole.
"Makarka" (their name for Makarin) "will go
through fire and water for you for nothing. So here are our accounts
all settled," said Dolokhov, showing him the memorandum.
"Is that right?"
"Yes, of course," returned Anatole, evidently not
listening to Dolokhov and looking straight before him with a smile
that did not leave his face.
Dolokhov banged down the or of his and turned to Anatole with
an ironic smile:
"Do you know? You'd really better drop it all. There's
still time!"
"Fool," retorted Anatole. "Don't talk nonsense!
If you only knew... it's the devil knows what!"
"No, really, give it up!" said Dolokhov. "I
am speaking seriously. It's no joke, this plot you've hatched."
"What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?" said
Anatole, making a grimace. "Really it's no time for your
stupid jokes," and he left the room.
Dolokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole
had gone out.
"You wait a bit," he called after him. "I'm
not joking, I'm talking sense. Come here, come here!"
Anatole returned and looked at Dolokhov, trying to give him
his attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.
"Now listen to me. I'm telling you this for the last
time. Why should I joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged
everything for you? Who found the priest and got the passport?
Who raised the money? I did it all."
"Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?"
And Anatole sighed and embraced Dolokhov.
"I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth;
it is a dangerous business, and if you think about it- a stupid
business. Well, you'll carry her off- all right! Will they let
it stop at that? It will come out that you're already married.
Why, they'll have you in the criminal court...."
"Oh, nonsense, nonsense!" Anatole ejaculated and
again made a grimace. "Didn't I explain to you? What?"
And Anatole, with the partiality dull-witted people have for any
conclusion they have reached by their own reasoning, repeated
the argument he had already put to Dolokhov a hundred times. "Didn't
I explain to you that I have come to this conclusion: if this
marriage is invalid," he went on, crooking one finger, "then
I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no matter! Abroad
no one will know anything about it. Isn't that so? And don't talk
to me, don't, don't."
"Seriously, you'd better drop it! You'll only get yourself
into a mess!"
"Go to the devil!" cried Anatole and, clutching
his hair, left the room, but returned at once and dropped into
an armchair in front of Dolokhov with his feet turned under him.
"It's the very devil! What? Feel how it beats!" He took
Dolokhov's hand and put it on his heart. "What a foot, my
dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!" he added in French.
"What?"
Dolokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent
eyes looked at him- evidently wishing to get some more amusement
out of him.
"Well and when the money's gone, what then?"
"What then? Eh?" repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed
by a thought of the future. "What then?... Then, I don't
know.... But why talk nonsense!" He glanced at his watch.
"It's time!"
Anatole went into the back room.
"Now then! Nearly ready? You're dawdling!" he shouted
to the servants.
Dolokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered
to bring something for them to eat and drink before the journey,
and went into the room where Khvostikov and Makarin were sitting.
Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow
and smiling pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly
to himself.
"Come and eat something. Have a drink!" Dolokhov
shouted to him from the other room.
"I don't want to," answered Anatole continuing to
smile.
"Come! Balaga is here."
Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balaga was a famous
troyka driver who had known Dolokhov and Anatole some six years
and had given them good service with his troykas. More than once
when Anatole's regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him
from Tver in the evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and
driven him back again the next night. More than once he had enabled
Dolokhov to escape when pursued. More than once he had driven
them through the town with gypsies and "ladykins" as
he called the cocottes. More than once in their service he had
run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets of Moscow
and had always been protected from the consequences by "my
gentlemen" as he called them. He had ruined more than one
horse in their service. More than once they had beaten him, and
more than once they had made him drunk on champagne and Madeira,
which he loved; and he knew more than one thing about each of
them which would long ago have sent an ordinary man to Siberia.
They often called Balaga into their orgies and made him drink
and dance at the gypsies', and more than one thousand rubles of
their money had passed through his hands. In their service he
risked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in their
service had lost more horses than the money he had from them would
buy. But he liked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles
an hour, liked upsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian,
and flying at full gallop through the Moscow streets. He liked
to hear those wild, tipsy shouts behind him: "Get on! Get
on!" when it was impossible to go any faster. He liked giving
a painful lash on the neck to some peasant who, more dead than
alive, was already hurrying out of his way. "Real gentlemen!"
he considered them.
Anatole and Dolokhov liked Balaga too for his masterly driving
and because he liked the things they liked. With others Balaga
bargained, charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours' drive,
and rarely drove himself, generally letting his young men do so.
But with "his gentlemen" he always drove himself and
never demanded anything for his work. Only a couple of times a
year- when he knew from their valets that they had money in hand-
he would turn up of a morning quite sober and with a deep bow
would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always made him sit
down.
"Do help me out, Theodore Ivanych, sir," or "your
excellency," he would say. "I am quite out of horses.
Let me have what you can to go to the fair."
And Anatole and Dolokhov, when they had money, would give
him a thousand or a couple of thousand rubles.
Balaga was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of
about twenty-seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck,
glittering little eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue,
silk-lined cloth coat over a sheepskin.
On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward
the front corner of the room, and went up to Dolokhov, holding
out a small, black hand.
"Theodore Ivanych!" he said, bowing.
"How d'you do, friend? Well, here he is!"
"Good day, your excellency!" he said, again holding
out his hand to Anatole who had just come in.
"I say, Balaga," said Anatole, putting his hands
on the man's shoulders, "do you care for me or not? Eh? Now,
do me a service.... What horses have you come with? Eh?"
"As your messenger ordered, your special beasts,"
replied Balaga.
"Well, listen, Balaga! Drive all three to death but get
me there in three hours. Eh?"
"When they are dead, what shall I drive?" said Balaga
with a wink.
"Mind, I'll smash your face in! Don't make jokes!"
cried Anatole, suddenly rolling his eyes.
"Why joke?" said the driver, laughing. "As
if I'd grudge my gentlemen anything! As fast as ever the horses
can gallop, so fast we'll go!"
"Ah!" said Anatole. "Well, sit down."
"Yes, sit down!" said Dolokhov.
"I'll stand, Theodore Ivanych."
"Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!" said Anatole,
and filled a large glass of Madeira for him.
The driver's eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After
refusing it for manners' sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth
with a red silk handkerchief he took out of his cap.
"And when are we to start, your excellency?"
"Well..." Anatole looked at his watch. "We'll
start at once. Mind, Balaga! You'll get there in time? Eh?"
"That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn't
we be there in time?" replied Balaga. "Didn't we get
you to Tver in seven hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?"
"Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,"
said Anatole, smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makarin
who gazed rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. "Will you
believe it, Makarka, it took one's breath away, the rate we flew.
We came across a train of loaded sleighs and drove right over
two of them. Eh?"
"Those were horses!" Balaga continued the tale.
"That time I'd harnessed two young side horses with the bay
in the shafts," he went on, turning to Dolokhov. "Will
you believe it, Theodore Ivanych, those animals flew forty miles?
I couldn't hold them in, my hands grew numb in the sharp frost
so that I threw down the reins- 'Catch hold yourself, your excellency!'
says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom of the sleigh and sprawled
there. It wasn't a case of urging them on, there was no holding
them in till we reached the place. The devils took us there in
three hours! Only the near one died of it."
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